


Everyone has it (but he is it)

by Inkgirl



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A lot - Freeform, Aftermath, Angst, Character Study, No Plot, Nogitsune!Stiles, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:28:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkgirl/pseuds/Inkgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles became a shadow on the day of the sacrifice, and now it won't leave him alone.</p>
<p>Everyone has it, but no one can lose it.</p>
<p>He became it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone has it (but he is it)

There is a shadow following him.

 

There are eyes trained at him, every time, but when he turns around nobody is there.

 

Stiles knows, he knows, this is just the aftermath of the possession.

 

This is his sub consciousness, reliving what happened. 

But… sometimes, there are days, when he isn’t so sure.

He knows, he has seen it, that the nogitsune is dead. There was a sword in his back, he saw how he dropped on the cool floor, took the last breath and cracked. 

The body, his own, in a kind of way, turned into dust. He felt it in the same moment, something, something in the deep of his mind lifted and he could breathe again.

 

He knows it, for sure, the nogitsune is gone for good.

 

But he is gone from this world. He can’t reach it anymore, not without access to his body. Somewhere, in another reality, in another etheric plane, he lives. 

And he haunts him.

There are nights, nights filled with laughter and murmuring TV, filled with starlight and warm winds, when he wakes up weeping. 

He wakes up, not moving, not screaming, breathing calm and with open eyes, and he feels tears on his cheeks. He looks into the beautiful nights, cramps his fingers into fists and listens for the breathing of his father in the room next to his.

He matches the slow rhythm, breathes in and out, easy and silent, and remembers the nights when the noises his father makes were calming, easing his whirling mind. 

 

Now… now they just help more tears to fall down his cheeks. He wishes dearly to be alone, absolutely alone, so he can be sure that there is nobody else. 

Cause this breath of his father is not his own, it’s foreign and he remembers a different breath, down on his neck and shoulders, when a shadow stood behind him and breathed the same air as him and embraced him like they were friends.

 

When every move he made was copied, remade from the shadow into something cold and dangerous. The nogitsune was like it, deep deep water in the ocean, far away from earth, where a stone sinks thousand miles to the ground.

 

These nights are the worst.   
He is always relieved when he wakes up with his father shaking him because he screamed of death and rage and other worlds.

The nogitsune was all that: foreign, like a creature from another universe (he supposes it’s true), it was his nightmares from the past, when his mother died and he hid in the closet because the monsters crawled out from under his bed.

The nogitsune is cold. The cold once threatened his life, when he was still connected with the evil spirit, sank into his bones like stones into water, and it clings now into his flesh.

He can’t get warm anymore. 

He tried. 

He took hot baths and breathed in steam, just to shiver from the ice in it. He wore layers over layers, but they froze on his skin like frost on windows. So Stiles gave up, accepted the cold and now he wears it as a coat, wraps it around him and pretends to be fine.

 

Stiles puts away every game he finds, board games, video games, everything. He is done with games, for good. He played a game too long.  
He lived in a riddle too long. 

_Everyone has it, but no one can lose it._

He looks into the shadows now, stands and turns around and scratches a foot over the dark thing what will follow him forever, and reminds himself that he won’t lose it. Ever.

Stiles remembers the beginning. He remembers the ice water, where he drowned to sacrifice himself. It was love then, he did it for his dad. Now he sees the similarity. _Drown in ice and darkness._

He still does.

The fox didn’t choose Scott, or Allison. Not the true alpha, powerful and strong, unchangeable. Not the the huntress, with strength and trust from everyone. _No_ , the shadow whispers, _no, I chose you._

_I chose you, because I didn’t have to fight you.  
Because we were already one. Because, even when I started my game, you didn’t notice, because we play the same game. We make the same moves. I didn’t have to change you, because you accepted me, because you felt that I was like you, a part of you._

The shadow whispers in his ear, mind and heart, sighs and murmurs in thousand languages and now he understands every one of them.

Stiles sits into his classes, smiles at his friends, listens at his Spanish teacher, and in his head he corrects their mistakes and translates everything into Japanese, greek, german, latin. 

He never says anything though.

He is back into normality, _reality_ , laughs and jokes and avoids looks, but in the silent hours, he passes the graveyard, thinks _I’m sorry_ and crumples flowers in his hands. In the hours when he’s alone, he allows his smile to slip and his eyes to drop the joy, he allows his hands the shaking and his breath to become colder than the air around him.

When he is for himself, he avoids mirrors (because sometimes something hungry looks back) and thinks at the souls he took (he wasn’t strong enough to stop just _stop please Allison_ ) and writes the S backward on his skin, like the oni, to confirm, he is himself.

 

_Because when you become a shadow, even for just a while, you will never get back._

**Author's Note:**

> The story of the nogitsune was my favorite and so I wanted to write something for it. Stiles is a fascinating character and I don't think he got over the whole thing so easily as showed. He was possessed and I think there would be scars, and memories. So I decided to give them a thought and that's what came out.   
> Enjoy.   
> (And sorry for errors and confusion)


End file.
